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Please have snow and mistletoe and presents by the tree…

12/30/2020

This year we did have snow that blanketed the yard on Christmas Eve with a presence that seems especially felicitous reminding me of the movie White Christmas that we watch every year. There was no mistletoe hanging at the Lacska house this year but Wendy and I don’t need any special seasonal incentive to kiss. We certainly did have presents by the tree. Over the course of my life I must have received thousands of Christmas presents. I’ve received books, sweaters, my share of ties and some beautiful and special gifts from Wendy over our 29 years of marriage. I still remember the joy of being a child and seeing the Zorro Play set under the Christmas tree one year and my Red Ryder BB Gun when I was 12.

I know some folks lament the commercialization of Christmas, but there’s something about it all that appeals to me. While this year all of the Christmas presents we gave were purchased online, I usually enjoy watching shoppers trying to decide on a special gift in local stores and I smile seeing people put money into the red Salvation Army kettles, giving without needing recognition or reward and the bell ringers bundled up in the cold and wishing everyone a merry Christmas.

When my children were little, I loved watching their faces filled with surprise and delight when they ran into the living room early on Christmas morning to see what Santa had left under the tree. And now that they are grown and have children of their own, seeing the exuberance of our young grandchildren when Santa makes a surprise visit to our house. There is something magical about it all that I truly love.

The idea of giving gifts at winter solstice and Christmas comes from many historical sources. The ancient Romans celebrated Saturnalia during the week of winter solstice. It was a time for feasting, goodwill, generosity to the poor, the exchange of gifts and the decoration of trees. In Northern Europe, families decorated with evergreens and holly. Odin flew over their homes during the winter solstice riding his eight legged horse Sleipnir and bringing gifts and candy. In the Christian tradition, the magi brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the infant Jesus. When I was a child, Santa left unwrapped gifts under the Christmas tree while we slept on Christmas Eve night. It wasn’t until 3 Kings Day on January 6 that we unwrapped family gifts.

Saint Nicholas, the 4th century bishop of Myrna Turkey, was known for his generosity and kindness toward the poor and especially toward children. He was known for giving treats and small presents to them and even bags of gold to young women who could not afford a dowry. Santa Claus is an archetypal combination of St. Nicholas and Odin, and became renowned when Clement Moore wrote his now famous poem “Twas the night before Christmas” in 1822. Since then, we all know that Santa flies through the air in a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer, comes down the chimney to fill stockings and surround the Christmas tree with gifts. All of these traditions have blended together to form the Christmas that many of us celebrate today in the Western world.

But did you know that the people of East Asia have a folk figure like St. Nick or Santa? According to their historical legend, Hotei (or Budai) was a whimsical Buddhist monk who lived during the early tenth century in China and was a good and generous man with a kind heart. Like Santa, Hotei has a cheerful face and a big belly, and is widely recognized as the fat, laughing Buddha we see in Asian restaurants and stores. Hotei is considered by some followers of Buddhism, Taoism and Shinto to be the god of good luck and happiness as well as the guardian of children. He carries a large cloth bag over his back that never empties. Inside of it there is an inexhaustible cache of gifts.

Benedictine sister Mary Lou Kownacki wrote a wonderful poem expressing how Hotei’s bag doesn’t always contain what we hope for, but just what each individual needs:

Hotei: The Enlightened One by Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB
Hurry, the enlightened one
Enters the city gates
An old patched bag slung over his shoulder.
The enlightened one
Meets a hungry child
Reaches into the bag and bread appears.
In a golden carriage a wealthy lord approaches
A lightning bolt escapes the bag and strikes
Him to the ground. I am blind, he cries.
Long lines of complainers gather
And tongues of fire fly from the bag
Into their mouths. They speak with new voices.
Representatives of the state appear.
Truth topples from the bag
And strips them naked.
An old woman pulls at the enlightened one’s robe,
Tears streaming from her eyes.
Out of the bag
Comes a listening heart.
Oh, for that bag you should sell everything.

The Japanese offer us another gift appropriate for Christmas, It is the practice of Naikan (Japanese for looking inside). Naikan is both a spiritual practice and a psychotherapy method developed by Yoshimoto Ishin, a prison chaplain in the 1940s. It was adopted by psychotherapists in Japan and is now used worldwide. Teacher and writer Rabbi Rami Shapiro adapted Naikan for his own daily spiritual practice and highly recommends it. Naikan is a Christmas gift we can give to ourselves every day. Here it is is a Chestnut shell:Just before going to bed at night, ask yourself these questions:

What gifts have I received today?
What gifts have I given today?

Begin by making a written or mental list of what you have received during the past 24 hours in detail. Be specific and list as many things as you can recall. These “gifts” do not have to be anything big. They may be a smile, someone holding a door for you, a nice comment, or a warm beverage. These gifts can include help or support you received from people, but you can broaden this to incorporate gifts from the non-human world of animals and plants, water and other elements. When finished, reflect for a while on each gift on your list.

Now focus on question 2: What gifts have I given today. Most of what is on this list may be small things you have done for others. Again, when finished, reflect on those things. Over time, you will begin to see the interrelationships with others and with the natural world. For example, Wendy and I love to watch the variety of birds at our bird feeder while we eat breakfast. They give us joy and we fill the feeders and throw some seed on the ground as our gift. It is a reciprocity that is gift to both the birds and us.

The spiritual practice of Naikan can help us awaken to the kind of gifts we receive and how we respond to them inwardly and outwardly. It will also teach us what kind of giver we are. Kahlil Gibran wrote:
There are those who give little of the much which they have and they give it
     for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
     And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life
   and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty. There are those who give
   with joy and that joy is their reward. And there are those who give with pain,
    and that pain is their baptism… Through the hands of such as these, God speaks,
   and from behind their eyes, God smiles upon the earth.
(The Prophet)

COVID-19 changed Christmas for most of us this year. But giving and receiving gifts was likely still part of the celebration - not just gifts wrapped and placed under the Christmas tree or those sent by mail, the but the gifts of telephone conversations or Skype or Zoom get togethers. They were the Christmas carols and songs we listened to and maybe sang along with. They are the familiar holiday foods we ate and the smiles given and received, but were unseen behind masks, and the simple gift of wishing someone a Merry Christmas or Happy Holiday.

Many of us have a Christmas tree in our home. A tree that stays green all through the cold dark winter and reminds the us that Spring will return - that the darkness has not overcome the life force or viriditas as Hildegard of Bingen calls it. We decorate our tree with lights of festive colors or that twinkle like little stars that remind us that there is light even in the darkness of winter and of COVID. We hang ornaments that bring back memories of Christmases past and family. Around the base we placed gifts that represent our love and appreciation for each other. Even with the sadness of COVID and the separation that it has caused, we are still gifted in so very many ways.

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Dry Bones & Coronavirus

4/2/2020

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The Jewish Scripture reading in many Christian churches this past Sunday began with the prophet Ezekiel being taken by the Spirit of the Holy One to a valley that was full of dry bones.This image of the wasteland is a common theme of the hero’s journey in myth and fairytales referring to a land and its people being lifeless and metaphorically dried up. The twelfth century healer, mystic and saint, Hildegard von Bingen likened illness to dryness, drought, aridity, and infection that arises when the flow of our viriditas, our life force, is drying up or blocked.

We are all beginning a mythic hero’s journey in which the land is becoming a wasteland from coronavirus. Driving down the main street in our little town and seeing images of New York City and Atlanta makes that very clear.

When Jesus began his journey he dealt with his own wasteland experience. Immediately after his baptism in the Jordan, Mark tells us “The Spirit sent him out into the wilderness” (1:12), where he faced the temptations of Satan; or from a more Jungian perspective, his own shadow and where he is aided by his better angels.

In Sunday’s reading, The Holy One asks Ezekiel, “Son of Man, do you think these bones can live?" Ezekiel diplomatically answers, “Certainly you know the answer better than I do.” Of course a similar question is on our minds: Will I live? Will my loved ones live? Can our nation, as we know it, come back to life?

But the Divine One says: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these that they may live” (Ezekiel 37: 9). Now I do not want to suggest that somehow God will come along and smite this virus. I have served as a chaplain and counselor long enough to know that life threatening disease is indiscriminate. It comes to those with little or no faith and to those with strong faith. I don’t pretend to know how it all works and for me theology falls short in giving a satisfactory answer.
I think the key element of this reading is the importance of breath. The word for breath in Hebrew, ruach, also means spirit. We take for granted the miracle of air and breath. Each breath we inhale, invigorates our heart, mind, and entire body from the first moment of life until our death. This coronavirus attacks our very ability to breathe and it can weaken our spirit.

On our recent vacation in Hawaii we had the opportunity to attend the show at the Polynesian Cultural Center. It was an amazing combination of stage musical with traditional Polynesian singing and dancing. The title of the show was Ha - The Breath of Life. The show began and ended with the birth of a baby. Just after the birth of his child, the father held the baby’s face close to his own and breathed loudly making the sound, “haaa”, breathing the life force, the spirit into his child. We also learned on our trip that the Hawaiian greeting of aloha, has a much deeper meaning to the local Hawaiian people. Beside a greeting it means love, compassion and the presence of divine breath.

The Navajo people have a similar tradition, The Wind comes to each individual at the moment of birth and gives each child the vital breath of life. Soon after their birth, Navajo babies are ceremoniously presented to the winds who reside in the North, South, East, and West, who give them a "little wind" to remind them that the life and breath that sustains them and dwells within them is entwined with the Holy Wind that encompasses the cosmos.

I love this meaning. It gives me hope. I encourage you to think that whenever you take a breath, at least six feet away from others for now, you are breathing in the divine breath, the breath that has given life across the ages on this earth. When you go outside and you feel the wind blow across your face, that is the breath of the Divine reaching out to cool you, to touch you, to give you life. How different our lives might be if we were all conscious of breathing the divine spirit in and out to nourish us with viriditas and bring our dry bones back to life.

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Evergreens and Holidays

12/14/2019

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Our first significant snow has made an appearance covering this part of the country with a blanket of white. From my office window I see several spruce and pine trees, snow weighing down their evergreen branches. The view charmed me into musing on the symbolism of evergreens as we prepare for Winter Solstice and Christmas.
Using evergreens is an ancient and multi-cultural tradition associated with the celebration of Winter Solstice. The early Romans decorated their homes with evergreen boughs, holly and mistletoe during the Winter Solstice. The Celts of Northern Europe shared this tradition but added hanging wreaths and garlands, as well as bringing Yule trees into their homes during the cold dark winter. It was believed that the spirits of these trees would inhabit their homes and bless all
who lived there. For the Celts, the evergreen symbolized the eternal nature of the human soul and the World Tree connecting Earth and Heaven - the seen and the unseen. This tradition was absorbed into Christianity for the celebration of Christmas as a symbol for Christ, who was the Tree of Life.
In Chinese philosophy too, pines radiate life force or qi (chee), nurturing our souls and spirits. There are usually pine branches on Daoist and Buddhist altars during the dark days of winter. In Japan, homes and temples are decorated with pine branches for the New Year Celebration.
The medieval mystic and healer Hildegard von Bingen also was fascinated by the evergreens. She begins her song O Nobilissima Viriditas with the words, “O most noble evergreen rooted in the sun, and who shines in bright serenity upon the wheel. Nothing on earth can comprehend you. You are encircled in the arms of divine mysteries. You are radiant as the dawn and burn as the flame of the sun.” Perhaps she was influenced by the voice of the Jewish prophet Hosea who is recorded as speaking for the Holy One saying, “I’m like a flourishing evergreen tree; I provide life year-round.”
Hildegard uses the term viriditas as the greening power of God. She regarded it as the animating life-force within all of the cosmos, giving it life, vitality, and fecundity. It has to do with the holy potential within creation. Greening - viriditas -is a state of grace. Even science supports this metaphor. Pine and spruce trees continue to photosynthesize and give off oxygen even in the coldest months. For Hidegard this evergreen energy was associated with the Holy Spirit. In her O Ignis Spiritus Paracliti, she sings:
O fire of the Holy Spirit,
life of the life of every creature,
holy are you in giving life to forms…
penetrating into all places,
in the heights, on earth,
and in every abyss,
you bring and bind all together…
The Eastern Orthodox Church embraces this connection. Green is the liturgical color used during liturgies of the Holy Spirit as opposed to the red vestments used in the Western Christian Church.
It is said that Martin Luther was the first to have decorated a Christmas tree with candles. The story is told that one night before Christmas, while walking through a forest he looked up and saw the stars shining through the tree branches. He was so moved that he went home and told his children that it reminded him of Jesus, who left the stars of heaven to come to earth at Christmas.
After coming home on a cold and dark winter night, one of my favorite Christmas activities is sitting in the living room with Wendy, turning out all of the lights, except those on our Christmas tree, sipping a hot cup of tea or spiced wine, and silently contemplating the Christmas tree with its nostalgic decorations and glistening lights.
Perhaps this year while sitting, we will be granted the grace of viriditas - of seeing the Christmas tree as the Tree of Life, as a symbol of the Christ who is the life of all humankind. Perhaps this year, with all of the darkness around us, not just from the long cold nights, but from the suffering of people and Mother Earth herself, the Evergreen viriditas of the Christmas tree will provide the comfort and hope of knowing that life, and hope, and divine energy, are still with us even in the bleak midwinter. Maybe we will be able to join with the hopefulness of Lakota mystic Black Elk who said: “It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds.”

May you all be blessed with a happy and holy Winter Solstice and Christmas.

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If that was my Easter dream...

4/22/2019

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The resurrection isn’t only about Jesus. In Orthodox icons of the resurrection, Jesus is almost never alone. He is depicted taking the dead by the hand and pulling them out of their tombs. The Roman Catholic Missal reflects this idea in one of their memorial acclamations: Dying, you destroyed our death. Rising, you restored our life. Lord Jesus come in glory!

As a transpersonal pastoral counselor with a Jungian orientation, I would like to explore the resurrection story focusing on the individual human psyche rather than on Christology. I will explore the Easter story in the gospel of Mark as if it were a dream in which all of the images are archetypal aspects of the psyche from the collective unconscious.

It is not surprising that the gospels place the death and resurrection of Jesus during the feast of Passover, the commemoration of the liberation of the Jewish people from their bondage in Egypt through Moses. At least some of the followers of Jesus must have hoped that he was the messiah, the new Moses, who would lead the Jewish people from oppression under the Roman empire. But instead, Jesus preached a message of love, even for the enemy - the Romans. And instead of establishing a physical Jewish kingdom of God on earth, he was arrested and crucified for sedition.

Many scholars think that the gospel of Mark was written during, or just after, the Jewish rebellion and the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman army that resulted in the destruction of the city including the Holy Temple. God did not come down from the heavens to destroy the Roman army and establish a realm of heaven on earth. The early followers of Jesus, like the women at the ending of Mark’s resurrection story were afraid. These first followers of Jesus had to make a shift from the idea of breaking free from bondage under Rome to a new interpretation of the realm of heaven and the role and person of Jesus of Nazareth.

It is interesting that the Hebrew name for Egypt was Mitzrayim, which means the narrow or limited place. Perhaps both the story of the exodus and the resurrection can remind us that we do not have to be limited by our circumstances, our complexes, or a narrow view of our past stories. In her book Sacred Therapy, Jewish teacher and psychotherapist Estelle Frankel, quotes a Jewish Hasidic saying, “It was not enough to take the Jews out of Egypt. It was necessary to take Egypt out of the Jews.”

In dream groups I facilitate, when someone comments on another person’s dream, they are required to preface it with, “If that were my dream…” That is how I am approaching Mark’s resurrection story.

The story begins with three women coming to ritually anoint the body of Jesus. The number three indicates that this is a sacred story, and for the ancient Hebrews, three is the number of truth, a wisdom story. Women as the focus of the story indicates that the story is about the feminine, feeling, and intuitive energy being necessary to accomplish the story’s task. It is sunrise, suggesting a new beginning, a time of awakening, or enlightenment.

The women say, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb?” The stone is a barrier to the psychological or spiritual goal and could signify the defensive wall the ego puts in the way to guard us from unconscious material, and change. The ego wants us to maintain the status quo, to be completely grounded in everyday reality. When the women arrive however, the stone has already been moved out of the way, reminding us that the Divine wisdom within is open to all who seek it. As Jesus taught, “Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7 CEB).

When they enter the tomb, the women see a young man dressed in a white robe. The word used in Greek for this white robe suggests a Jewish kittel, a garment worn for special occasions, such as weddings or ritual mikva baths. It is another symbol that this is a story of a spiritual new beginning. The young man they encounter represents the animus. Jung defined the animus as “the deposit, as it were, of all woman's ancestral experiences of man - and not only that, he is also a creative and procreative being” (Anima and Animus, Collected Works 7). Meeting the animus indicates a need for a balancing of feminine and masculine energy. Early Christian theologians, including St. Paul, saw Jesus as the embodiment or incarnation of Sophia - Holy Wisdom - who was feminine. So in Jesus, masculine and feminine energies were balanced. He was the complete human in full union with the Divine One. The story mentions that the young man in white is sitting on the right side. This lets us know that this is a right brain or numinous encounter.

The women are frightened. “Don’t be alarmed,” the young man says, “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. But he has been raised (raised into consciousness). He is not here! The Christ within cannot be contained by the shadow of the unconscious. As Jesus said himself: “The spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8 CEB).

Sr. Joan Chittister wrote, “To celebrate Easter means to stand in the light of the empty tomb and decide what to do next” (Benetvision: Feast of dazzling light). The young man says, “Go! He is going ahead of you into Galilee. Galilee is where Jesus first began his ministry. T.S. Elliot wrote: “The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” (Little Gidding). In other words, our dream gospel is telling us to start over, at the beginning, to see what Jesus’ teaching is really about in light of the resurrection.

The story/dream of Mark’s gospel originally ended with the women afraid and confused. They run away from the tomb and say nothing to anyone. Sometimes, when we have a powerful spiritual experience or dream, we are afraid to tell anyone. We are frightened or confused by its potential meaning. We worry what others may think? It may take quite a while for us to fully understand our experience and share it with others. Sr. Joyce Rupp wrote, “Eastering isn’t always a quick step out of the tomb. Sometimes rising from the dead takes a long, slowly-greening time” (Out of the Ordinary). Orthodox theologian, Patriarch Athenagoras wrote, “The Resurrection is not the resuscitation of a body; it is the beginning of the transfiguration of the world.”

Maybe Easter means that we no longer need to be bound by our false self, by the ego, or by our personal history and complexes. Maybe we have to go into the dark tomb of our unconscious, put on the Christ consciousness within, and be resurrected and then return to our everyday life, where the poor still need food, where traumatized veterans and abused women need to be acknowledged and healed, where the teenagers want us to put away the weapons of war and violence, and where political and religious tribalism separate us instead of uniting us. To adapt the words of medieval theologian, Meister Eckhart, we have to ask ourselves, What good is it that Christ was resurrected, if he has not been resurrected in our hearts.

So let us join in Sr. Joyce Rupp’s Easter prayer: “Resurrected One, May I become ever more convinced that your presence lives on, and on, and on, and on. Awaken me! Awaken me!” (Out of the Ordinary)

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The Water of Life

2/25/2019

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I was the guest homilist at Ascension Episcopal Church in Stillwater Minnesota on second Sunday of Epiphany. The gospel reading was Luke’s version of the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. It is an important mythical story.

When I use the word mythical, I use it in the same way that Catholic Priest and mystic, Bede Griffiths did; that all religious stories are ‘myths’ or symbolic expressions of truths that cannot be fully expressed in any other way.

Until I went to seminary, I thought that John the Baptist invented baptism. But Jewish ritual baths called mikvah, were used in Israel for 600 years before Jesus was born. These ritual baths were taken for purification, renewal and healing, and are still an important Jewish ritual. A mikvah must take place in “living water,” a stream, or a spring in which the water moves, which is why Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River.

Why water? In many of the world’s creation stories, life comes from water, and now science concurs. Human birth is a microcosm of this story. The fetus lives in the amniotic fluid (mostly water) of the womb until the mother’s “water breaks” and the child is born. For Jews, the mikvah personifies the womb of God and rebirth.

Not only does our human life have this watery beginning, but about 60% of our body is made up of water. Water flows through our veins in blood and it nourishes our cells. It removes toxins and waste from our body. Without enough water, our physical functions, our mental sharpness, and our energy levels are reduced. Water is necessary for life to exist at all.

The people of the Lakota Nation have the saying: mni wichoni, which means, “Water Is Life.” But this saying also means water has life. It has consciousness. It has a spirit.
In Luke’s gospel story, Jesus has an epiphany; a Divine encounter. After Jesus was immersed in the living water of the River Jordan “and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my son, my Beloved child; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22)

I want to share a small epiphany I experienced regarding the relationship between water and God. One warm spring day a few years ago, my wife Wendy and stepson Andrew spent the afternoon on Brighton Beach in Duluth. Wendy and Andrew found a small stream that was working its way down from the woods, over the rocky shore, and into Lake Superior. They decided it would be fun to see if they could dam up the stream. So they set about hauling handfuls of rock and gravel to build their dam. They worked and worked but as they stopped the flow in one spot, the stream just went down to the Lake via a different route. Even when they seemed to stop all the little streams, the water began to flow under their dams.

I was reminded of something medieval theologian Meister Eckhart wrote, "God is a great underground river that no one can dam up and no one can stop." I believe that God is constantly guiding us, coaxing us, and prompting us, like the current of a river, from without and from within. No matter what obstacles we face, God is persistent. Like water, the Divine One is always working around and through these obstacles. Franciscan priest and popular spiritual writer, Richard Rohr wrote, ”The River is flowing, and we are in it. The river is God’s love, so do not be afraid."

As an Orthodox Catholic priest, when I preside at the Holy Mystery of Baptism, I say the following, as part of the Rite: “You are baptized. You are illuminated… You are sanctified…. Become what you already are.” And who are we? St. John tells us we are children of God. In this Eastern Orthodox Rite of Baptism, infants are immersed in the waters of the baptismal font as a symbol, a remembrance, that as well as being born from our mothers, we are born from the very womb of God. This is a great mystery — a mythic truth — that we are not fully able to express.

Hermann Hesse wrote this wonderful line in his book Siddhartha that helps me understand this mystery of water and baptism. “They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.”

Maybe, if we listen silently to the water, the next time we sit by a river or watch waves breaking on the shore, we too will hear a voice from heaven saying, You are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased.

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The Year of the Phoenix

2/5/2017

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Gong Hay Fat Choy! 恭喜發財 Happy Chinese New Year!
While it seems a bit early to think about Spring here in Wisconsin, Chinese New Year is the Chinese Spring Festival. This year it came a few days before the Celtic celebration of Imbolc or Candlemas, which is also a celebration of the lengthening days and the anticipation of Spring.

In Chinese Astrology 占星術, 2017 is the year of the Fire Rooster. The Rooster is associated with the Sun since it crows at dawn to awaken us. The Fire Rooster is also known as fenghuang 鳳凰 in Chinese. The Fenhuang are mythological birds that reign over all other birds and are often seen paired in paintings with the Chinese dragon. In the West, we call it the Phoenix.

Each year Wendy and I have a Chinese New Year ceremony in our home chapel. This Liturgy combines the rituals taught to me by my qigong sifu with a seventh century Chinese Christian Divine Liturgy. As part of the ritual I toss the I Ching coins seeking guidance for the new year. This year the I Ching reading was Li 緊貼 Clinging Fire. The image this evokes is fire clinging to the wood that it burns. In these ominous and challenging political times, we may be tempted to abandon our inner balance and lash out. But it is in just such times that it is important to cling to what we know to be good and true, like fire clings to the log it burns. By doing so, we gain the aid of the Divine Spirit, who in the writings of the new Christian believers, appears like fire.

In the Chinese Five Phase Theory, Fire is associated with the heart. This fiery Spirit is wonderfully expressed in this poem by Joyce Rupp called Hearts on Fire.

I wanted it.
Desired it greatly.
Yearned for its coming.
But when it did come,
I fought, resisted it, ran, hid away.
I said, Go home!
didn’t know the fire of God
could be more than a gentle glow
or a cozy consolation.
I didn’t know it could come as a blaze.
A wildfire uncontrolled, searing my soul,
chasing my old ways, smoking them out.

Only when I stopped running,
gave up the chase,
surrendered,
did I know the fire’s flaming as consolation and joy.
Only then, could I welcome the One
whose fire I had long sought.

Psychiatrist and WWII Concentration Camp survivor, Viktor Frankl wrote, “What is to provide light, must endure burning.” And in the gospel of Matthew, John the Baptizer says of Jesus, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” If we are to be the light of the world, as Jesus declared, then we must be willing to endure the fire of the Spirit.

As this year of the Phoenix unfolds, let us pray along with John Philip Newell:
“Rekindle in us Your Spirit O God, that we may be fully part of the blazing splendor that burns from the heart. That we may be fully part of the blazing splendor of this moment and every moment.”

REFERENCES

“The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy”, by Viktor Frankl, Random House, 1986.

"Hearts on Fire" From May I Have this Dance: An Invitation to Faithful Prayer Throughout the Year, by Joyce Rupp, Ave Maria Press, 2000.

“Celtic Benediction: Morning and Night Prayers” by J. Philip Newell, William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005.

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Thin Places and Synchronicity

10/5/2016

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Last summer, Wendy and I took a road trip to Pendaries New Mexico where Wendy participated in an oil painting class and I spent time hiking the mountains of Ponderosa Pines, doing qigong and tai chi and meditating in the forests. When the class ended, we drove the mountain road to Taos stopping at the pilgrimage site of El Santuario de Chimayo and then on to Santa Fe, Taos, and Manitou Springs Colorado exploring the Garden of the Gods.

Heading back home on old US Route 83, while Wendy was driving the rolling hills of Nebraska, she said, “I really like driving on these old two lane highways except that sometimes people take terrible chances passing.” Seconds later, looking ahead on the rolling highway, I said, “You mean like that guy!” We saw ahead in the distance someone coming toward us in our lane trying to pass a line cars and trucks. Wendy had to quickly pull completely off the road onto the rough shoulder (luckily there was one) to avoid a head-on collision.

Was it just a coincidence that she made her comment just before someone tried to pass, or was it more?

This wasn’t the first time that something like this had happened. A few months earlier, Wendy was driving into downtown St. Paul and I was riding shotgun. As we entered the city, Wendy began to drive very slowly and almost stop at each intersection even when we had the green light. I looked at her and asked, “Are you okay?” She ignored me and continued to drive in this overly cautious way. I asked again if she was okay and again got no answer. I began to worry that she was having some type of medical “event.” She again paused, actually stopping at our green light at the Wabasha Street intersection, when all of a sudden, a pickup truck sped through their red light going much faster than the speed limit. If Wendy hadn’t stopped, we surely would have been T-boned and seriously injured or even killed.

What happened in these situations? Carl Jung would say that synchronicity was at play. He described synchronicity as the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect, and that is meaningful to the observer. There are no rational explanations for these situations in which a person has a thought, a dream or inner psychological state that coincides with an event. Jung saw these synchronistic events as “signs” created by an integrated and purposeful universe that link us with other people as well as with animals and even inanimate objects through the collective unconscious.

Whenever synchronicity occurs, there seems to be a connection between the visible - physical world and the invisible matrix, unseen connections, the Tao, or the Great Mystery we call God. G.K. Chesterton once quipped, “Coincidences are spiritual puns.” For Jung then, synchronicity is more than mere coincidence; it is characterized by a sense of meaning and numinosity.

Might synchronicity be more expansive than our psyche? Might it involve the invisible realm that the ancient Celts say is on the other side of the veil? Could it be a connection with what is called the spirit world, the place where our ancestors, the saints or spirit helpers we call angels dwell? Catholic priest and Jungian analyst Victor White argues that experiences of synchronicity come from the Holy Spirit.

During our visits to the church of El Santuario de Chimayo and the Catholic churches of Santa Fe and Taos, we noticed the importance of the intervention of the Santos, the Saints, to the spirituality of the local people. The emphasis of the art behind the main altars was not the crucifix, but many images of the saints, as in the photo of the Cathedral Basilica of St Francis in Santa Fe above.

As I prepared for the Winter Solstice/Christmas Liturgy last year, I was searching the house for the cloth I cover altar with for this special liturgy. It was a deep blue cloth with small golden stars on it. It reminds me of Brigid’s mantle in the children’s book Brigid’s Cloak an Ancient Irish Story that I was planning to read during the Solstice service. The cloth was not in its usual place nor did it seem to be in any unusual places. Out of frustration and lack of any other possible places to look, I spoke aloud, calling upon Saint Brigit to help me find this cloth that would be reminiscent of her mantle. Immediately and without thought, I went down to Wendy’s painting studio and removed a cloth that was set over a box she was using for still-life painting. I opened the box and there was the starry blue cloth! I felt a bit bewildered and thought, “What just happened?” Did Saint Brigit guide me to the cloth? Being a psychologist, I cannot say with scientific certainty, but I did go into our chapel and light incense thanking her.

It is not only the saints or angels that may be involved in synchronicity. When Wendy’s brother Jim was near death, the family wondered about the stories of “signs” from deceased family members and speculated about whether something like this would happen to them. A few days after Jim’s death, we sat at our breakfast table and the pendant lights above our kitchen island began to dim and then grow bright over and over again. I finally walked over and turned off the lights. When I turned them back on, they seemed fine. Wendy had taken a video of the dimming and brightening lights and was posting it with an e-mail to family. After describing the phenomenon with the lights, she was typing “Wooooo”, when the computer suddenly auto-corrected it to “Jimmy,” the name Jim called himself, but no one else in the family used. By the way, the lights never did this before or after that day.

Can it be that just as stars cannot be seen in midday, our every day sensory awareness is not set for “seeing” the pattern of underlying oneness or connections with other unseen worlds that occurs in synchronicity? Cambridge biologist, Rupert Sheldrake describes how we are biologically connected in unseen ways through what he terms “morphic fields.” Social psychologist, Diarmuid O”Murchu, wrote in his book, Quantum Theology: Spiritual implications for the New Physics, “In the Quantum universe, all things operate within the context of relational interaction. Each synchronistic event is a clue hinting at the possibility that we, and everything in the universe, are invisibly linked rather than unrelated and separate.”

Perhaps X-Files character, FBI Agent Fox Mulder is somewhat right in his thesis that “We are not alone.” When we experience synchronicity, instead of feeling ourselves to be separated and isolated entities in a vast universe, we can feel a connection to unseen others at a deep and meaningful level. That underlying connection is part of the collective unconscious, the Eternal Tao, the Holy One, and a synchronistic event is a specific and very personal experience of that mystery.

References
The Tao of Psychology Synchronicity and the Self, Jean Shinoda Bolen, 1979.

Brigid’s Cloak an Ancient Irish Story, Bryce Milligan and Helen Cann, 2002.

Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, Carl G. Jung, 1952.

Quantum Theology Spiritual Implications for the New Physics, Diarmuid O’Murchu, 2004.

Morphic Resonance the Nature of Formative Causation, Rupert Sheldrake, 2009.

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The Way of Death and Resurrection

3/7/2016

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Lent can be a confusing time. During the Ash Wednesday liturgy that begins Lent, the priest or minister draws a cross with ashes on each person’s forehead saying, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” These words echo the language of the Christian funeral liturgy, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” A reminder of our death seems to be a primary theme of Lent, and indeed each of us will die someday. But Lent culminates with Easter, and we are told that through the resurrection, Jesus conquered death, or as Saint Paul wrote, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” So, is it a time to focus on death, or continuing life after death?

Death has certainly been a part of my experience. In 1985 my father died and six months later my only brother died. On Holy Thursday 1987, my mother also died. I lost my entire family of origin in a two year period. My work as a chaplain has primarily been with those who have life-threatening illnesses. In the midst of writing this, our family is facing the death of Wendy’s youngest brother Jim, who is in the end stages of cancer. But my experience with death is even more personal. When I was nine years old, in fourth grade, I had emergency surgery for a perforated appendix and during that surgery I had what is now called a Near Death Experience.
Perhaps Lent is both a reminder of death and a reminder that life and death are not dichotomous but like the ongoing turning of yin and yang. Kahlil Gibran wrote in his reflection, On Death: “Life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one…. And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?”
Maybe even eleven year old poet Mattie J. T. Stepanek somehow glimpsed this wisdom before his far too early death when he wrote his poem called About Death:
Isn’t it ironic
That such a morbid word (death)
Rhymes with life-giving breath?

During Lent we are encouraged to pray, fast and give alms, and while good practices, they can too easily be activities that simply feed our spiritual egos. Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr wonders if these practices are too often substitutes for the inner journey. He writes “Our culture no longer values the inner journey.” In fact, “We actively avoid and fear it. In most cases we no longer even have the tools to go inward.” (What The Mystics Know)

I have found that Taoist internal alchemy 內丹术 provides me with tools for this inward journey. These practices include physical, mental, and spiritual qigong to purify and transform our mortal body into an immortal spiritual body. This is similar to Eastern and Esoteric Christian teachings on theosis or deification. Perhaps Jesus was referring to internal alchemy when he told Nicodemus that he must be born again of spirit and water in order to enter the realm of heaven.

Commonly, inner alchemy qigong focuses on the lower abdomen, known as the lower dantian 下丹田. The Shimen 石门, or Stone Gate acupuncture point is located on the lower dantian is just below the navel. Mythically, this point is the entry to the caves and labyrinths leading down to where we are transformed and reborn. The Psalmist wrote, “You give me strength as I descend into the inner sanctum, to uncover hidden blessings, to seek the treasures of Spirit.” (Psalm 119)

Past the Stone Gate we encounter the po (魄) spirits that dwell beyond our conscious awareness. Po is sometimes used to describe the dark aspect of the moon. Psychologically, the po are our complexes, emotional blocks, and intuitive knowing. Each time we venture down to the realm of the po, we face the darkened areas of our psyche or in Jungian terms, our shadow. Our task is to expand ourselves to include these disowned and feared aspects of self allowing our true divine Self to awaken.

In order to accomplish this we must pass beyond the po spirits and into the darkest cavern of the psyche where the zhi 志 spirits reside. The zhi connect us to the collective unconscious, the part of our psyche that draws us out of, and back into the Infinite. It is here, in this timeless place, where we approach stillness, darkness, and death, that we eventually become aware of light in the darkness. Jung wrote in his Alchemical Studies, “When one stays in darkness long enough, one begins to see.”

Ming men 命門, the Gate of Life acupuncture point, is on our back, exactly opposite the Stone Gate. It is the mythic portal that leads out of the labyrinthian caves and into resurrection and new life. The Stone Gate being opposite the Gate of Life indicates that death and life are part of each breath we take. These gate metaphors remind me of Jesus saying, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.” (John 10:9)

I would like to share a qigong meditation for Lent.
Begin by sitting straight in a comfortable chair with both feet flat on the floor. Release tension with each exhalation. After a couple of minutes, allow your awareness to rest on your breathing. Turn away from the outer world by closing your eyes. Breathe deeply into your lower abdomen below the navel. You may notice that it naturally and gently expands with each inhalation and slightly retracts with each exhalation. After simply breathing for awhile you may feel the powerful energies that reside there. As you continue breathing into your belly, imagine you are entering through a Stone Gate and into a dark cavern. In this labyrinthian cavern you become aware of an underground sea of energy. This is the place of the alchemical or paschal mystery.
Simply continue to breathe. Surrender to the mystery of this place. As thoughts appear, let them pass like flickering shadows. You may experience anxiety or even fear in this dark cavern. Do nothing. Simply breathe. Feelings of anxiety or fear arising only mean that you are approaching the mystery. As you continue this practice over a period of days, weeks or months, your conscious mind will let go and you may experience a tingling or warmth in your dantian and become aware of this inner light appearing in the darkness of your imagination and gradually expanding to show you the way out through the Gate of Life.

To end this meditation, clear your mind of all images and take a deep breath filling your belly and entire torso with air. Then exhale through your mouth. Take another deep breath through your nose and again exhale through your mouth. Inhale once more and as you exhale this time slowly open your eyes and re-orient yourself to what is around you in the sensory world.

Practicing this meditation on a daily basis may help you better grasp the mystery of Lent and Easter found in the words of John’s gospel: “In the Word was life, and that life was the light of all humankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:4-5)

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Wise Men and Gifts of Wholeness

1/6/2016

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This posting is my sermon given at Ascension Episcopal Church in Stillwater Minnesota on January 3, 2016

I want to thank Reverend Grace and all of you for inviting me to speak with you today. Let me tell you a little about myself. I am Fr. Yanchy Lacska and I am an ordained priest in the Eastern Orthodox tradition as well as an ordained Interfaith minister. I am also a member of the Lindisfarne Community, an ecumenical new-monastic community in the Anglo-Celtic tradition. I am wearing the habit of the community. The first time my young grandsons saw me wearing this habit they said in surprise, “Grampa! You’re a Jedi.” Besides being a priest and a Jedi, I am also a retired hospital chaplain and a psychologist emeritus.

Today, I want to talk to you about three things:
First, I want to reminisce a little about my childhood Christmases.

Second, I want to talk about the wise men in today’s gospel reading and how the celebration and meaning of Christmas developed differently in the Eastern Church than it did in the Western Church.

Third, I want to offer you an idea that may give you a another perspective on giving and receiving gifts at Christmas.

So let me begin by telling you about my childhood Christmases. When I was a child, Christmas in our family was, as the song says, that most wonderful time of the year.
I was always excited when we bought a Christmas tree and brought it home. My father would take out his old army trunk filled with colored lights, ornaments and the nativity set and we would decorate the tree. On Christmas Eve, we would attend midnight mass as a family. Then, while we were sleeping, Santa mysteriously came and left presents under our tree.

But Christmas wasn’t over after December 25th. For our family, Christmas ended on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, celebrating the three wise men, as was my father’s tradition growing up in a small village in Hungary. We opened gifts from each other and my dad made a delicious Hungarian crepe dessert filled with jam and sweet cottage cheese called palacsintas.

I remember my father telling us the story of how in his home village, three young boys would be picked each Epiphany to dress up as the three magi. They wore decorated pointy hats, and walked from house to house holding up a star on a stick. The village priest followed blessing each home by sprinkling the doorways with holy water, and then writing the letters: C+M+B (for the names of the three Magi: Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar) + the current year above the door with blessed chalk.

Who were these wise men from the East Matthew mentioned in his gospel and celebrated on the Epiphany? There is scholarly debate about whether they were a mythical invention of Matthew, who wrote about them to reinforce the belief that Jesus was the messiah, or whether they really existed and the story based on historical fact. If the story is real, the magi would have beeb members of the priestly caste of the Zoroastrian religion of Persia (Babylon). We know that these magi were highly educated and skilled in astronomy.

Because of the Hebrew captivity and exile in Babylon, the magi would have been well versed in the Jewish Scriptures, including the predictions of the coming of an anointed child or messiah. It was not only the Hebrew prophets who spoke of the coming of a messiah or a special anointed one. The Persian prophet Zoroaster predicted that an anointed one would be born and that a star would signal his birth. Zoroaster’s description is very similar to that of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, which is a part of the liturgical Advent readings: “A Child will be born to us. And he will be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty Messenger, Prince of Peace.” The sudden appearance of a brilliant star would have signaled to the magi, the prophesied birth of this anointed child.

The story of the magi following the star and bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to honor the Christ Child is a beloved part of the Christmas story along with singing angels and shepherds. But while this story is sweet, what is really important for many Western Evangelical Christians, is not the Christmas story, but Jesus dying on the cross to save us from our sins.

For Eastern Christianity the story is broader and deeper. Jesus did not save us only by his death as a sacrifice to a rigid justice-seeking God. His whole life was important to our salvation: His birth, his teaching and healing ministry, his death, and his resurrection.
In this Eastern Christian view, salvation is not a one time event in our lives that occurs when we accept Jesus as a personal savior or when we are baptized. Salvation is understood as the ongoing, lifelong (and maybe after life is this body) process. Salvation is understood in it original Hebrew and Greek meaning healing and wholeness. Salvation has the same root as the salve we put on a wound. Salvation is process of becoming more and more united with God. St. Athanasius wrote in the third century, “God became human so that humans can become like god.”

Franciscan priest and popular author, Fr Richard Rohr, also understands salvation this way. He wrote, “Somehow, to live in conscious union with God, is what it means to be saved.” Even Jesus, quoting the psalms, said, “You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.” (John 10:34 - Psalm 82:6) Jesus also said, “Be perfect, as your heavenly parent is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

What on earth does it mean to say “you are gods or to be perfect?” Doesn’t our faith teach that there is only one God, in three Persons? How can human beings be gods? In Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Christianity, this concept is nothing new or shocking. It is called theosis. Theosis is the understanding that human beings, who are mythically created in the Divine Image and Likeness, can be truly united with God, and so become like God to such a degree that as St Paul wrote, “we participate in the divine nature,” and as Jesus prayed in John’s gospel, “Just as you (God) are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us.”

C. S. Lewis understood this concept and expressed it in his book Mere Christianity. Lewis wrote: “The command ‘Be ye perfect’ is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He said that we were ‘gods’ and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him. He will make us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine.” (1952, p.174)

The word Jesus used that is usually translated as perfect, more accurately means complete, undivided, and whole.

In Matthew’s gospel story, the magi opened their treasure chests, and offered gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Treasure chests is appropriate, because these would have been very expensive gifts. But these were more than expensive gifts traditionally given to royalty. They would have also been understood by the magi as mystical symbols of wholeness.

Gold represents the mind. Like gold needs to be refined to separate it from base minerals, so must our minds be purified in order to hear the guidance of Holy Wisdom.

Frankincense represents our spirit or emotion. Frankincense has been used for millennia during religious ceremonies and is still the major ingredient in church incense. Recent research at Johns Hopkins University found that smelling frankincense induces feelings of peace and relaxation and can even relieve depression and anxiety. So frankincense helps us become calm and attuned to the holy or sacred during ceremony or meditation.

Myrrh represents the body. Myrrh was used to embalm dead bodies in ancient times. But it was also an ingredient in ancient medicine. In fact, myrrh is still used in medicines today. During his crucifixion, Jesus was offered wine with myrrh to ease his pain. So myrrh represents healing and life after death.

These gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh then are symbols of mind, body and spirit, symbols of wholeness, of salvation. This wholeness not only focuses on our personal wellbeing, or on a restoration of our unity with God. It includes the Divine One’s desire to heal and make all of creation the realm of heaven, the place and time when all things in heaven and earth are in sacred unity. Indeed, one of the titles or names for God in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, is Abwoon, which literally means Sacred Unity.

Maybe the story of Christmas is more than a story only about the infant born in Bethlehem ~ more than about magi following a star and giving gifts. Maybe it is the story about which St. Paul wrote, “God has chosen to make known the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” ~ Colossians 1:27 Medieval teacher and mystic, Meister Eckhart once said: ‘What good is it that Christ was born in Bethlehem if he is not born now in your heart?’

I want to leave you with a challenge. On some night this week, when all is dark and quiet, sit in front of your Christmas tree with only the tree lights on, or if your tree is gone, light a candle and sip a glass of wine or tea and think about the light of the Star that guided the magi to the infant in a manger, the light that still guides us. Think of the gifts you gave and received at Christmas in a new light. See each gift you gave as recognition and of honoring the Christ who resides in that person, and each gift you received as honoring the Christ in you. Reflect on how you are on the path of becoming whole and one with God, one with each other, and one with all of creation. And then you will truly have a happy new year.

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Moon on the Water

12/1/2015

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For our honeymoon, Wendy and I stayed in cabin four at Solbakken Resort on the North Shore of Lake Superior for two weeks. For several years afterwards we spent a week in cabin 4 around the time of our anniversary.

One summer, during our stay, I wrote in my journal:

We started a fire on the rocks in front of cabin four last evening and watched the daylight colors reflecting on Lake Superior slowly change into pinks and lavenders with gray clouds as a backdrop. The reflection of the sunlight on the clouds caused ‘God rays’. The egg shaped moon rose before the dark enveloped the sky, sending its familiar path of moonbeams across the lake directly to the shore below our fire.

We have experienced this occurrence of moonbeams dancing on the watery path many times as we sat on the rocky shore of Lake Superior in front of cabin four as well as from other locations along the North Shore. We have sat quietly meditating on the moon and the moonbeams and we have discussed the spiritual meaning this phenomena evoked in us.

During these nights it looks like the moonlight path on the water is coming directly toward us and it is not even ten feet on either side of us. Yet if I was in Duluth and Wendy up the shore in Grand Marais, we would still both see the moonlight path only shining directly on each of us alone. This is how it too often is with the people of various religions, or of no religion, each one believing that the Divine Light or the truth of revelation has come only to them and could not possibly be shining on someone of a different faith tradition or ideology. Ego says, I have the true light and they do not.

But if we follow the moonbeam path to its source, we see only the moon. So perhaps the lesson is not to focus on the moonbeam coming to to us but to let it guide us to the moon, the source. Perhaps the greater lesson is to remember that the scriptures, the masters, religions are not the Source and to use them to find out what they all are pointing to. We will find out that they are all pointing to the same Source.

On Wendy’s birthday, we spent the night in a condo on Lake Pepin to have a good view of the full moon rising over the lake. But the sky was overcast, the wind was strong and it rained. We could not see the moon, or even its glow, but we knew it was there. So is the day moon, invisible during the our daytime, but always in relationship with us on the earth whether we see it or not.

A few years ago, cabin four burned down and it was not rebuilt. Wendy and I were both very sad, even though we hadn’t stayed there for awhile. Even though we loved cabin four and grieved its loss, I though of the haiku written by seventeenth century Japanese poet and samurai Mizuta Masahide:

the barn's burnt down
now
I can see the moon

Image is an oil painting by Wendy Lacska - Moon over Superior

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Please have snow and mistletoe and presents by the tree…

Dry Bones & Coronavirus

Evergreens and Holidays

If that was my Easter dream...

The Water of Life

The Year of the Phoenix

Thin Places and Synchronicity

The Way of Death and Resurrection

Wise Men and Gifts of Wholeness

Moon on the Water

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